Second division club Holstein Kiel are top of the table. The defense is the top team’s main asset. Goalkeeper Timon Weiner is an important part of this.

Holstein Kiel are marching from victory to victory in the Bundesliga 2. The second-division side have won six in a row to go top of the table and are on the verge of a historic promotion to the Bundesliga. Four match days before the end of the season, they already have a six-point lead over third-placed Fortuna Düsseldorf. Kiel have impressed with their strong team spirit as well as their disciplined and determined style of play.

One of the guarantors of the “Storks'” run of success is goalkeeper Timon Weiner. Since the fourth matchday, a 2:0 away win at Schalke, Weiner has been Kiel’s number one. Born in Essen, he replaced Thomas Dähne in goal for the third-placed team. With 13 clean sheets in 27 second division games, the 25-year-old has kept the most clean sheets in the league (48.1 percent).

Particularly impressive: Weiner recently kept six clean sheets in a row. The last goal he conceded came in the 45th minute of the 2-2 draw at Hertha BSC on March 1 through Haris Tabakovic. Since then, Weiner has not been beaten for 585 consecutive minutes. He is currently on course to break the record. Arminia Bielefeld still hold the record for the most consecutive clean sheets in the 2nd division: they achieved this feat eight times in a row in the 2009/10 season.

Two games against basement dwellers short of the record

To equal this record, Weiner would have to keep clean sheets against 1. FC Kaiserslautern (April 27) and SV Wehen Wiesbaden (May 5). This will be followed by games against Fortuna Düsseldorf and at Hannover 96, and Weiner hopes that the streak will continue. He emphasized in the Sky interview:

“I haven’t experienced a streak like this before, it’s also my first professional season. Of course I’m extremely pleased. It definitely has to do with our cohesive defensive performance. It starts at the front with the striker. Brutal compliments to the whole team. It’s not normal how we throw ourselves into balls. When you play to nil, you only ever need one goal to win.”

As a youth player, Timon Weiner first played for Rot-Weiss Essen (2008-10), then later for MSV Duisburg (2010-13) and FC Schalke 04 (2013-18). The boy from Essen had his longest and most successful time at Schalke. There he developed into a junior international and won the West German championship with the U19s. However, the 1.91-meter man did not receive a professional contract in Gelsenkirchen